1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to room dividers, more particularly, to a portable, freestanding room dividers.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are times that it is desired to divide large areas, such as rooms or halls, into smaller more private areas. One method of doing this is by movable wall panels which are suspended from and move on tracks attached to the ceiling and/or floor. This method is relatively expensive and it is inflexible as the space only can be divided according to the pattern of tracks.
Another method for dividing large rooms into smaller private areas is to use movable freestanding screens. This method is relatively inexpensive and permits the formation of areas of a wide variety of sizes and shapes. However, many freestanding screen must be placed in a zigzag pattern in order to stand by themselves. That zigzag pattern consumes an amount of otherwise useable floor space. In addition those screens present storage and handling problems.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,272,848 discloses a portable room divider which has a plurality of hinged wall panels positioned between a pair of end members. The wall panels are supported by a plurality of casters mounted on feet which project laterally from the bottom of the wall panels. The end members also are supported by casters. The combination of wall panels and end members can be folded into a compact configuration for easy movement and storage. The hinged wall panels can be unfolded to form a straight wall which is supported is a stable manner by the casters on the feet and end members. A hinged junction between two adjacent wall panels can be bent at an angle to form a corner of the temporary wall, for example a 90° corner for a rectangular subdivided area.
To further stabilize an extended portable room divider, removable clips were furnished to attach at the upper edges of two adjacent panels. Each rigid clip bridged the hinge joint to secure the angle between the panels. A set of clips for 90°, 135° and 180° panel angles were provided. Although the rigid clips worked well at preventing the installed panels from bending at the hinges, the placement and removal of the clips increased the time required to set-up and remove the portable room divider. Between use, the clips had to be stored in a container which had to be keep with the room divider and even with the container individual clips became lost over time.
This portable room divider described in the aforementioned patent functioned extremely well on relatively level floors. However, the floors in some new and many older buildings tend to be uneven with humps and depressions. When the portable room divider is unfolded in such buildings, some of the casters do not touch the low sections of the floor and thus do not properly support the associated wall panels. When a caster does not touch the floor, the associated wall panel will wobble with the slightest lateral force thereby rendering the entire room divider unstable. The obvious solution is to place shims between the casters and the floor, but this required additional set-up and removal steps. In addition, the shims have to be stored when not in use and located each time the portable room divider is needed.
There is a need for a more convenient technique for stabilizing a portable, freestanding room divider under a variety of floor conditions.